Whether we agree or not, he has the right to speak or tweet what he wants. Minus hate speech, of course :legalprecedent:

The wisdom of doing so in a public forum, as a public figure, is debatable at best.

But, he's not the only one who doesn't believe the towers fell because 2 planes blew threw them. Surely you've all seen the conspiracy theory websites? They're the ones run by the same guys who believe that Elvis, JFK, RFK & MLK Jr. are all still alive and have a rock & roll band in Tijuana.....or Brazil.

And then you have the Baltimore Orioles player, Luke Scott, who has repeatedly come out as a birther and just recently claimed that the long form birth certificate was a forgery or "photoshopped".

World's full of 'em. Gotta expect that a few of them are high profile athletes and may even be on your favorite team....

"I appreciate those of you who have decided to read this letter and attain a greater understanding of my recent twitter posts. I see how they have gotten misconstrued, and wanted to use this outlet as a way to clear up all things that do not truthfully represent myself, what I stand for personally, and any organization that I am a part of.

"First, I want people to understand that I am not in support of Bin Laden, or against the USA. I understand how devastating 9/11 was to this country and to the people whose families were affected. Not just in the US, but families all over the world who had relatives in the World Trade Centers. My heart goes out to the troops who fight for our freedoms everyday, not being certain if they will have the opportunity to return home, and the families who watch their loved ones bravely go off to war. Last year, I was grateful enough to have the opportunity to travel over seas and participate in a football camp put on for the children of US troops stationed in Germany. It was a special experience. These events have had a significant impact in my life."

" 'What kind of person celebrates death? It's amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We've only heard one side ...' "

"This controversial statement was something I said in response to the amount of joy I saw in the event of a murder. I don't believe that this is an issue of politics or American pride; but one of religion, morality, and human ethics. In the bible, Ezekiel 33:11 states, "Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways!...". I wasn't questioning Bin Laden's evil acts. I believe that he will have to face God for what he has done. I was reflecting on our own hypocrisy. During 9/11 we watched in horror as parts of the world celebrated death on our soil. Earlier this week, parts of the world watched us in horror celebrating a man's death.

"Nothing I said was meant to stir up controversy. It was my way to generate conversation. In looking at my timeline in its entirety, everything that I've said is with the intent of expressing a wide array of ideas and generating open and honest discussions, something I believe we as American citizens should be able to do. Most opinions will not be fully agreed upon and are not meant to be. However, I believe every opinion should be respected or at least given some thought. I apologize for the timing as such a sensitive matter, but it was not meant to do harm. I apologize to anyone I unintentionally harmed with anything that I said, or any hurtful interpretation that was made and put in my name.

I haven't had any experience in smelting, but I know grillin', by crackey. And I know the cast iron coal grate in the bottom of my Weber grill has malformed over the years from the heat of hardwood coals, so I imagine a few tons of burning jet fuel could melt out steel supports in towers whose engineering is similar to a stak of celery (rigid vertical external supports). Sorry, Rashard, the incompetents who brought you the Iraq war weren't smart enough to pull this caper off Mission Impossible-style.

The idea of celebrating ObL's death is a valid question. I'm not going to judge any American's reaction to it; everyone feels powerfully about it, and I think they should be allowed their own personal release. The Mrs. brought me a morning cup of java and told me, so it took a moment to process. At first I couldn't believe it, never really thought it would happen. Then I was glad. Not whooping and jumping up and down, just glad the SOB was dead. Then in pretty short order, I felt pretty circumspect: how would this affect our troops overseas, foreign policy, terrorist recruiting... How does it change the world? And so on. It was a delayed relief.

But Mendenhall does have a ham-handed point that Americans have a very superficial and facile impression of bin Laden, fostered by media and politicians. I cannot agree with his methods, and felt he needed to be taken out as Obama and Team 6 did. But he was not "insane," and his agenda was not "hate for how we live." His agenda was very specific, both in terms of why (US foreign policy’s impact on Muslim and Arab countries) and what (do to us what the Mujahadeen did to the Soviet armed forces in Afghanistan). I think the underlying argument of the US as actor on the world stage has some validity, but ObL wasn’t engaging in an intellectual discussion. But the bottom line is that unless we understand the mindset of an ObL, we cannot hope to avert being blindsided by terrorism again. Remove a “madman” and he’s gone, but if the “madman’s” ideas are widely held, then we need to discuss root causes. We’ll see how this plays out in the context of the so-called Arab Spring and US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan cycling down. In this, I think Obama’s foreign policy (while neither completely satisfying to liberals or conservatives) is moving judiciously toward a better place in terms of not fomenting terrorism and perhaps defusing it somewhat.

Anyone that questions any aspect of 9/11 is going to be viewed as shitting on the graves of innocent people.

Personally, I think Flight 93 was shot down. Why wouldn't it have been? They'll escort Payne Stewart's death ship but just hope for the best with 93. And how is it that if I steal a bag of M&Ms from the local gasmart, they'll have video from multiple angles, but there's sweet FA from outside the Pentagon. I guess everything was just turned off that day.

Anyone that questions any aspect of 9/11 is going to be viewed as shitting on the graves of innocent people.

Personally, I think Flight 93 was shot down. Why wouldn't it have been? They'll escort Payne Stewart's death ship but just hope for the best with 93. And how is it that if I steal a bag of M&Ms from the local gasmart, they'll have video from multiple angles, but there's sweet FA from outside the Pentagon. I guess everything was just turned off that day.

Proof is always nice, but clearly not necessary.

That's one part of the 9/11 "conspiracy" (Flight 93 shot down) I might also believe. Packaged nicely as a hero tale. But I guess we'll never know, so to me it's moot. I've only seen that one video of the plane hitting the Pentagon, and I guess I never much considered that there should be, well, tons of cameras monitoring the place. But what's that mean? The thing was staged? Or that there's something we shouldn't see? Or that it was a videographic blind spot? Dunno.

That would be my guess. Must be something they don't want everyone to see. When that bridge dropped in the Twin Cities, there was footage online within hours. There's no way that's all the footage that exists.

I think the Lifetime movie of Flight 93 was already in production before it hit the ground.